Dr Tony Dornan

Background

My interest in Drosophila genetics began in 1989 as an undergraduate in Molecular Biology at the Univ of Glasgow, working as a summer placement student in the lab of Prof. Kim Kaiser. Coincidently my undergraduate honours project was in Julian’s lab in the Dept. of Cell Biology. In 1990 I became a SERC funded post-graduate researcher in the lab of Dr. Jane Davies in the Dept. of Genetics at the Univ of Glasgow, characterising a series of enhancer trap lines with expression patterns specifically restricted to the CNS and/or PNS. After a hiatus away from science I returned in 1999 as a research technician in the lab of Dr. Stephen Goodwin in Molecular Genetics (latterly Integrative & Systems Biology) at the Univ of Glasgow, initially studying the sex-determination gene fruitless and then also doublesex and their complimentary roles in determining the dimorphic neural architecture underlying sex-specific behavioural outputs in Drosophila. During this time I undertook a part-time Wellcome PhD. In the summer 2009, following the departure of Stephen’s lab for the Univ of Oxford, I transferred to the Dow/Davies lab. However I continued to work on, and successfully completed, my Doctorate in 2011 with my thesis ‘Structure/function analyses of neural circuitry controlling courtship behaviours in Drosophila melanogaster’ nominated for the Joseph Black medal and Alan Hird prize.